Home for Christmas
by Lizzy Lovegood
Summary: The Doctor lands in Pete's World on Christmas Eve but is worried Rose has moved on and won't want to continue traveling with him. That's when he sees the reindeer...


**Disclaimer: **If I owned Doctor Who, all the smutty Doctor/Rose fanfics would be televised. ;)

**A/N: **Hope all of you had a Merry Christmas! Here is (one of) my Christmas reunion fics, inspired by the 2009 BBC promo where the Doctor harnesses reindeer to the TARDIS (you can find the clip on YouTube if you haven't seen it).

This has also been posted to AO3 under LizzyLovegood.

_Allons-y!_

**. . .**

**Home for Christmas**

Under normal circumstances, landing in the middle of an unknown mountain range while zeppelins hovered overhead would have been a cause for celebration. Separated by distance alone rather than the unbreachable walls of the universes it would be nothing, to quote that catchy Proclaimers tune, for him to walk five hundred miles and then walk five hundred more, all to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at Rose Tyler's door, hand extended and fingers wiggling, an invitation for her to take hold and run - or at least charter one of Pete's zeppelins - the thousand or so miles back to the TARDIS for some long-overdue lovemaking. The adventures could wait for another day.

But what if she didn't take his hand? The Doctor stopped dead in his tracks, snow soaking into the cuffs of his trousers, panic flooding him.

He'd been gone - well, he didn't know how long he'd been gone. It couldn't be too far into the future, he consoled himself, one of the zeppelins was sporting an ad for Vitex. He would know if something had happened, would sense it just as Rose had sensed him, following the sound of her name on his lips to their final goodbye.

And he had wasted it. His last chance to tell her and he had _wasted _it. Could he blame her for moving on? For creating a life here with her mum and dad and Mickey just like he'd wanted her to? She might even have a little brother or sister by this point, who looked up to her and called her _Wose _and got told bedtime stories about a mysterious man called the Doctor and his magical blue box. A life that would fade into a story and a story that would fade into a myth.

This wasn't like last time, with her boyfriend clutching at her ankles and her worldview turned on its' axis, no other real choice to be made than to accept the Northern-accented alien's offer aboard his spaceship that, did he mention, also traveled in time. She had a life of her own now: family and friends and a world to defend without the Doctor at her side. Maybe she and Mickey had decided to rekindle their relationship or some ginger-and-not-rude bloke in R&D had invited her out to dinner. She had everything she needed. Every_one _she needed.

Who would choose the Doctor over a life like that? More importantly, _how _could anyone choose the Doctor over a life like that? What could he possibly offer her this time?

Turning on his heel and nearly falling face-first into one of his shoeprints, the Doctor began carving a trail back through the hard-packed snow.

Even if he could get the TARDIS working in this universe, you could only use a bigger on the inside time-and-spaceship to impress the woman of your dreams once. It wasn't likely to work a second time, not when Torchwood had any number of alien goodies and that bloke in R&D could show her every single one of them.

The Doctor would just have to find another way to get her attention. But how? He had seen enough films to know that humans had as many Grand Romantic Gestures: hiring a sky-writer to spell out _I LOVE YOU_ or spouting Shakespearean love sonnets, holding a boombox outside of her window or dashing after her through an airport where she queued up for her flight to Helsinki or Timbuktu and he sank to his knees in front of her, ring box clutched in his hand. All sounded terrifying and nauseating in equal measure.

But for Rose, he would endure them. For Rose, he would endure anything.

That was when he had seen the reindeer.

In hindsight, harnessing an octet of reluctant, untrained animals - handfed the last of the gravity-repelling grain he'd procured from Kringle a few centuries back - to his equally reluctant makeshift sleigh might not have been the best idea he'd ever had. They may not be descendents of the original eight but were more than capable of delivering him to the Tyler household safe and sound where, Rose's return with him assured, he would release them to romp through the air currents to their heart's content. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, one that he was sure they would have agreed to if the TARDIS wasn't refusing to translate their snorts and stamps.

Or so he'd thought.

Fingers scrabbling at icy roof eaves, the Doctor regretted that he had never taken the time to learn Reindeer. Rose would love it if he could translate just what Rudolph and his pals thought of the sugar cubes and carrots she'd loaded his transdimensional pockets down with. Not to mention that advance knowledge of those prone to epileptic fits or social anxiety - what Blitzen's loudest snort had undoubtedly meant - made all the difference when it came to steering his unwieldy team through a maze of telephone wires and low-hanging roofs while children and adults alike gathered in the street and pointed up at the sky.

"Why are you in a suit?" From his precarious position, the Doctor was just able to distinguish a bright mop of blonde hair and a puffy red jacket.

"What?"

"Santa's s'posed to wear a red suit. You're wearing brown."

"Oh. Er . . . it's at the dry cleaner's."

"Oh." His interrogator paused, considering. "Where's your beard?"

"Shaved it. Fancied a change, you know?" Another considering hum and the Doctor grasped at his chance. "Listen, is your mummy or daddy home? Because Santa would really appreciate. . . ."

"Why's your sleigh blue?" asked a second voice, louder and pushier than the first.

"Have you seen my sleigh?" The Doctor's feet scrambled for purchase as he attempted to push himself up, further onto the roof.

"Yeah," said the voice disdainfully. "Everyone did. You fell off."

"Ooh, is it 'cause you didn't have Rudolph this year?" piped up the first voice. "Is it 'cause Rudolph wasn't there to guide your sleigh?"

"Yeah, where is Rudolph anyway?"

"On holiday," the Doctor invented.

"Holiday?" echoed the first voice. "It's Christmas. Reindeers can't take a holiday on _Christmas_."

"Why not? You lot have Christmas hols, don't you?"

"I guess. . . ."

"Bullshit," snorted the second voice.

"Oi!"

"You sweared at Santa Claus."

"That's not Santa Claus, Jenny. Santa isn't even _real_."

"He's not?" The Doctor could hear the wobble in Jenny's lower lip and, abandoning his attempts at roof-scaling, released one hand to point furiously down at his accuser.

"Yes, I am!"

"No, you're not! You don't even have a beard!"

"He shaved it," said Jenny. "He told me!"

"And he's too skinny. _And _he's too young."

"But he has a sleigh, Simon."

"It's not a sleigh, stupid, it's just some old phone box. This whole thing is just some stunt the grown-ups pulled to fool stupid little kids like you."

"Hey!" Twisting to face the two more fully, the Doctor's foot snagged on a loose strand of Christmas lights. Too late he realized his mistake and was jerked from his precarious perch to dangle upside-down before the pair, a flashing string of red and green and blue coiled around his right ankle. Crossing his arms as best he could across his chest, the Doctor fixed them both with a serious expression.

"Belief in something is not stupid."

Jenny's shoes crunched in the light layer of snow and the Doctor watched the pink pom-poms on her boots bounce with each step she took. Craning his neck, he could see that her eyes were bloodshot and she was sniffling in the cold and it made the Doctor's hearts clench. Behind her, Simon was doubled over in laughter, oblivious to the Doctor's admonishment.  
>"Do you hear me, Jenny?" He widened his eyes in emphasis. "It's not. Some of the smartest people in history believed in things no one else did."<p>

Engrossed with a loose string on her jacket, Jenny only nodded.

"And you seem like a very smart girl, Jenny. You're right, I do look too young to be Santa Claus. That's because I'm Santa Claus from the past."

"Bullshit," Simon repeated with relish but Jenny turned back to him with wide, half-believing eyes.

"Really?"

"Mhm. That's why my sleigh looks different, it's a time machine."

"Where's our Santa?"

"Oh, he's still here," the Doctor assured her. "He's over in France right now. Needs to wait till you lot are in bed before he delivers the presents, doesn't he? He just sent me on ahead because I'm looking for someone. A friend of mine who was taken here."

"Rudolph?"

"No." The Doctor made no attempt to hide the giddy grin spreading across his face. "Her name is Rose."

"Rose Claus?"

"Rose Tyler," corrected the Doctor. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Simon smiling a nasty smile. "Have you seen her?"

The chances were infinitesimal, the Doctor reminded himself as Jenny's eyes screwed tight-shut in concentration. She could hardly be older than six and any six-year-old's parents wouldn't involve them in Torchwood politics let alone introduce them to the woman spearheading the entire operation. The most he could hope for was that mysteriously absent mother or father would come by to cut him down before he fell; it would be a mite inconvenient to regenerate from a broken neck when he was hardly a half-hour's walk away from his quarry.

"Jenny? Si? Oh, thank Christ." A tall, male figure rounded the corner of a house, skidding to a halt in front of the two children. Placing a hand on each of their shoulders and breathing heavily, he fixed them with a glare. "How many times do I have to tell you? _Stay in the house_."

"But Daddy, it's Santa Claus," argued Jenny, stepping in front of her brother and pointing up at the Doctor. "He says he's looking for Rose Tyler."

"Rose?" asked the man, frowning. "What do you want with Rose?"

The Doctor didn't answer. Both hearts in his throat, he found it damn near impossible to. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Jenny gasp.

"Doctor?"

And there had only ever been one answer to that.

"Rose."

Then she was running to him, stumbling in her heels and nearly tripping over the hem of her long, red dress (she was out of practice, Torchwood likely didn't train their agents in running-in-eveningwear) and neither of them could stop smiling. She stopped just short of where he dangled, standing on tiptoe to reach out and stroke his cheek and missing by inches. The Doctor smiled sadly and her lower lip wobbled for a second before she bit down on it, summoning a wry smile.

"No touch?"

"You just wait, Rose Tyler. Once I get down there, you're getting the reunion hug to end all reunion hugs." That and more if she'd let him, if she'd consent to take this hand, if this had been enough.

"Ooh, big talker." Then, turning back to the small family, "Ben, do you have a crane or something?"

"Rose, do you know this person?" The man, presumably Ben, furrowed his brow, glancing from one to the other.

"Of _course_ she does," said Jenny, sounding exasperated. "I told you, Daddy, this is Santa Claus from the past and he's coming to take Rose Tyler back with him."

"Si, take your sister inside."

"That's right." Rose nodded, raising an eyebrow in the Doctor's direction. The Doctor attempted a charming smile in return, fighting the urge to tug at his ear. "We just need to go get his, er . . . sleigh and we can be on our way."

"They found you alright, then?" asked the Doctor. "I told them the address but I'm not sure how much they understood. Remind me to pick up a Reindeer Rosetta Stone next time we're in the thirty-third century, will you? I'll have to make that my New Year's resolution. It'll come in handy next time I take you to Kringle. Do you know some of the reindeer there actually have red noses? 'Course, that kinda takes away from the uniqueness of Rudolph but. . . ."

"Yeah, landed right on the front lawn actually." With a deftness born of long experience, Rose cut straight through his babbling. "Scratched up a few cars on the way, mind you. You'll have to explain that to Mum once we get you down from there."

The Doctor grimaced. "Rose, how badly do you want that reunion hug?"

"About as badly as you do. Ben, can you call the recon team or something?"

"Rose, you know I'm not authorized to do that."

"Fine." Rose shrugged one bare shoulder, goosebumped in the cold; the Doctor wished he were near enough to toss his coat over her shoulders, draw her close into his chest and press a kiss to the top of her head. "Then Dad, or someone. No paperwork that way."

"Not that way, no." Ben ran a hand through his reddish-blonde hair, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "But we will have to question him, Rose."

"What?" squeaked the Doctor.

"He was observed piloting an unidentified flying object over a residential London area."

"I told you, Daddy. It's his _sleigh_." Exhaling through gritted teeth, Ben placed one hand on Jenny's shoulder and the other on Simon's and chivvied them unceremoniously into the house.

"You told her you were Santa Claus?" asked Rose.

The Doctor shrugged, the movement coming off slightly awkward in his current position. "Everyone needs to believe in someone."

Rose's eyes softened and the Doctor saw her fingers twitch, acting on instinct to entwine with his own. Grunting with effort, he leant as close to her as he dared.

"ETA on the fieldwork team is two minutes." Ben came striding out of the house, flipping closed his mobile phone as he went. He didn't pay the Doctor any attention but spoke directly to Rose.

"What?" repeated the Doctor.

"I'm sorry, but you know as well as I do what it's going to look like if we let him walk free."

"That you believe in innocent till proven guilty?" the Doctor retorted. He bit his tongue against repeating the statement - quite witty, if he did say so himself - when neither Rose nor Ben paid him any attention.

"Ben, he's not any threat, I can promise you that."

"You can't know that, Rose."

"I hate to pull rank but I'm the daughter of the Torchwood director, Ben. If he tries to take over the world, I promise I'll take the heat for it." She flashed him a tongue-touched smile that, even now, made the Doctor's insides go to jelly.

"Rules are still rules, Agent Tyler," he retorted. "I'm sorry, I know he's your friend but we can't afford to jump to any conclusions. I've had experience in these sort of clandestine operations . . ."

"Does anything about this look clandestine to you?" The Doctor gestured at the flashing fluorescent lights attached to his ankle.

Again, they both ignored him.

". . . I know how his type think."

"His type?" Rose echoed, almost in disbelief. Her flirtatious smile had vanished to be replaced by a fierce glare. It was a look the Doctor knew well, one she'd aimed at countless bloodthirsty alien tribes or power-hungry dictators, though the last time he had seen it, it was he who had been the recipient. Because it was not only a challenge, it was a promise: that she would never willingly leave his side (and God help any being who tried to get her to), that she was his protector as much as he was hers.

"And what type would that be?" asked Rose. "The type of person who saves the universe every other day without so much as a _thank you_, is that it? Ooh, or maybe the type of person who'll sacrifices his own happiness for the good of the universes."

"People change, Rose. You told me yourself that the walls between universes were supposed to stay closed."

"It was an accident!" the Doctor blurted without thinking. "That is - Rose, I. . . ." He was left mouthing helplessly at an elegant coiffure as Rose angled her body away from his own.

"You heard him," said Rose, "an accident. Once you've seen him pilot that ship of his it's a lot more convincing, believe me. So, you can either call the team yourself or I can call Dad and explain why you're taking a man whose only offense is being an idiot into custody."

The Doctor winced. He deserved that. Still, he couldn't suppress a smug smile as Ben hurried back toward the house, shoulders hunched and talking frantically into his phone.

"A fortuitous accident, obviously," he offered, once they were alone again. "I missed you."

"Of course. Obviously." But the smile didn't reach her eyes. "This was a nice surprise Doctor, thanks."

"My pleasure. I didn't, er . . . interrupt anything, did I? Not the best at timing, me."

"No, just Mum's Christmas bash. It was dead-boring with all those posh folks, anyway. 'Course, now they all want to know where Mum rented the reindeer from. That, and the police box. I think you've started a new trend, Doctor."

The Doctor groaned. "Brilliant, just brilliant. You did tell them it isn't for sale, right?"

"I'm sure Mickey'll keep their hands off it."

"Ooh, that's right! Sorry, that was rude of me, wasn't it? How is Mister Mickey, then?"

"He's doing good. We're partnered up for most missions now so I've been seeing more of him than I have in years. He's so different now, he's grown up so much. Traveling with you really changed him, I think."

"Good. That's good." Disappointment spread through him in a cold wave and the Doctor clenched his jaw in a stiff smile. Of course she had chosen Mickey: dependable Mickey, safe Mickey, no-longer-an-idiot Mickey. "I'm glad you're happy, Rose."

"We're not together, Doctor." She sounded irritated and, at his flabbergasted expression continued, "What, you think that just 'cause he was around to give me a hug when you weren't, I'd jump into bed with him? That's now how it works."

"Sorry." Unable to deny himself any longer, the Doctor's hand flew to tug at his ear. "I didn't mean - of course you wouldn't, Rose."

"'S alright. There's too much between us for us to really work anyway, you know?"

"Mmm." Images of Sarah Jane and Reinette, countless almost-kisses and Rose's confession that he couldn't return, spooled across his mind. What qualified as _too much _for humans?

"He just started dating someone, actually. Shauna. Really nice girl. She works with Ben."

"Ben."

"Yeah. He's really a great guy, Doctor. I know you two sorta got off on the wrong foot."

"Just a bit."

"If you got to know each other, I think you'd really hit it off. He works in R&D, I bet he'd love a look at the TARDIS." She spoke coaxingly, soothingly, in the type of voice used for soothing a tantrumy toddler, so much different from the take-no-prisoners glare she had turned on Ben.

"It's not my job to entertain your boyfriends, Rose," he snapped, taking a perverse sort of pleasure in the angry flush that suffused her face.

"Oh, for Christ's . . . he's my _friend_, Doctor."

"_I'm_ your friend."

"And I can't have any friends besides you now?" Rose crossed her arms over her chest, eyebrows raised in expectation of an answer she already knew.

The Doctor didn't know how much he'd missed that look until he realized how much he despised it.

"You have Mickey! And what's her name - Shayna."

"Shauna."

"Whatever." The Doctor turned his face up toward the star-strewn sky, purposefully avoiding Rose's eyes. "I just didn't think you'd go making other . . . other _friends_ willy-nilly is all."

Rose scoffed. "Like I need to explain myself to you. You snogged plenty of other women while I was with you."

"With me?" echoed the Doctor. He neglected to mention that it had been only one woman, a French aristocrat trained in the art of seduction. Not that that was any excuse. For how he had treated Rose, how he had treated both of them, she could have counted for a hundred if Rose had wanted.

"_Traveling_ with you, whatever." Frustrated, Rose ran a hand through her hair; a few bobby pins fell from her fingers, glinting and glimmering in the snow. "Did you think I'd just sit around and pine for you or something? I'm a grown woman. I have the right to go as many dates as I want."

"It isn't like I had a choice, Rose." The retort came out harsher than he had intended and he swallowed hard when Rose's lower lip wobbled again.

"No," she said in a small voice, bravado vanishing as quickly as it had come, "but you only came back by accident."

The Doctor winced. "That came out wrong."

"It's OK if you did, you know. If you've moved on and that. You don't look like you've aged a day but I dunno, it might have been ages for you, centuries or something."

"It's been a year, Rose." In truth, it had been a year, two weeks, four days, five hours, and twenty-three minutes, each beat of time without her another wound to bear. He wondered if he should tell her, if humans considered the counting of seconds and milliseconds a Grand Romantic Gesture, or if he would only come across as entirely alien, someone to be gawked at but never loved.

"Oh." The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her lips and the Doctor grinned. "It's been two for me," she added before he could prompt her.

"Well, this universe runs ahead," the Doctor reminded her, a feeble attempt at nonchalance when all he could think about was Rose without a hand to hold, a lost year of her lifespan, of their forever, that could never be regained.

"Yeah, s'pose." She shuffled in the snow, wrapping her arms around herself. "Dad should be here soon to get you down."

"He'd better be, I still have that reunion hug to make good on." When Rose shivered again, more violently this time, he added, "Why don't you go inside and warm up? I'll be there in a bit."

"No. I'll wait." Bringing her thumb to her mouth, she began picking at her cuticle, her telltale nervous tic. "Doctor. . . ."

"Rose?"

"I, ehm . . . I mean, do you, er. . . ." Her teeth clamped down on her thumb, hard enough to leave bright pink indents in the skin, lasting for several seconds after she released it. "Do you know I'm a big sister now?"

"Yes, I remember," said the Doctor, slightly let down. "You mentioned it on the - well, on the last time we talked. How is the new Tyler progeny?"

"He's brilliant. Well, a little terror, but brilliant." And, almost as an afterthought, "His name's Tony."

"He sounds lovely."

"He is. He really is. He'd love to meet you. We've told him all these stories about you, Mickey and me. Even Mum has a couple. 'Course, she's made most of them up, but he knows the word _Doctor _now."

"I'm flattered."

"You don't have to if you don't want," Rose hastened to add. "If you have the TARDIS ready to go, then - I just thought, since it's Christmas. . . . And it would mean a lot to Mum if you came. She's missed you."

"Far be it from me to disappoint Jackie Tyler," said the Doctor seriously. "She throws a mean slap."

"You don't mind?"

"Why would I mind?"

"'S not really your thing, is it? Domestics? Especially with no alien invasion this time, it's just gonna be turkey and crackers and Mum'll get tipsy and try to kiss you under the mistletoe or something and. . . ."

"It's important to Jackie and Tony that I'm there, though, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it is." Abandoning her torn cuticle, Rose began to fiddle with her earring, a diamond stud in lieu of her usual hoops.

"Then I'll grin and bear it. Family is very important to me, you know. I lost so much of it, but what I do have - I treasure it so deeply, Rose, you have no idea. It's the most important thing in my universe. In _any _universe. The Doctor and Jackie and Tony in the TARDIS."

"Just as it should be?" asked Rose. Her breaths came quicker now, misting in the cold air.

"Oh, I don't know, doesn't really roll off the tongue, does it?" The Doctor stuck out his own in demonstration, waggling his eyebrows. "I think your name sounds a lot better, to be honest. The Doctor and Rose: The Stuff of Legend. Make a good film title, don't you think?"

Rose beamed. "I love it, Doctor."

"I love it, too," said the Doctor, smiling a smile that shifted quickly into a frown as Rose laughed a laugh that turned into a sob and tears froze on her cheeks like ice chips.

"Rose, I know that humans express varying emotions through tears and that Christmas is a time that stirs up all these emotions but I just want to clarify that I was substituting the word _it _for the word _you _in that sentence. In doing so, I was being witty and romantic by mimicking your assertion that you loved my film idea which, while brilliant, is certainly not something to cry over and I hope you were making the same substitution of _it _for _you_ because, no matter who directed and starred in our life together, it would pale in comparison to the real thing." He paused, brow furrowed. "That's quite good, I like that. Remind me to put that in the script."

But the script could wait. Christmas dinner and finding the TARDIS and dealing with Jackie and the reindeer-dented cars could wait because here were Pete and Mickey, pulling up in a big, yellow truck and soon he would be on his feet again, stumbling through the snow with pins-and-needles in his legs, taking Rose's hand and wrapping her up in a reunion hug to end all reunion hugs, pressing a kiss to lips that tasted like home.

**. . .**

**A/N: **Want to give me a great (belated) Christmas present? Leave a review! If I could, I would send you all Doctors with reindeer-pulled TARDISes.

Have a Happy 2015! :)


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